Don’t know if you’ve all been following the increasing tension between China and Japan on the territorial front and China and the U.S. on the currency manipulation front… or the fact that Sovereign debt troubles are mounting once again in Ireland, Spain and Greece. Meanwhile back in America the poor continue to get poorer as the mega-wealthy get wealthier while the Republicans and Tea-Party get closer to their goal of paralyzing Washington and creating the perfect conditions for a fascist take-over that would enshrine Wall Street, Multinational U.S. firms and the U.S. Military as the direct benefactors of state power while American citizens who are not involved in the latter are left to rot as human waste.

The article referenced below is definitely worth a read if you need a bit more convincing that America is rapidly sliding towards somewhere our German friends ended up half-century ago. The point is also driven home in yesterday’s interview with Noam Chomsky (81 and still kicking!) on NPR where he reminds us that it only took a little more than a decade for the Weimar Republic to degenerate from being the pinnacle of Western democracy, science, arts and culture in the 1920s to becoming one of the most feared and depraved regimes in contemporary history.

The new culture of cruelty combines with the arrogance of the rich as morally bankrupt politicians such as Mike Huckabee tell his fellow Republican extremists that the provision in Obama’s health care bill that requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions should be repealed because people who have these conditions are like houses that have already burned down. The metaphor is apt in a country that no longer has a language for compassion, justice and social responsibility. Huckabee at least is honest about one thing. He makes clear that the right-wing fringe leading the Republican Party is on a death march and has no trouble endorsing policies in which millions of people – in this case those afflicted by illness – can simply “dig their own graves and lie down in them.”(7) The politics of disposability ruthlessly puts money and profits ahead of human needs. Under the rubric of austerity, the new barbarians such as Huckabee now advocate eugenicist policies in which people who are considered weak, sick, disabled or suffering from debilitating health conditions are targeted to be weeded out, removed from the body politic and social safety nets that any decent society puts into place to ensure that everyone, but especially the most disadvantaged, can access decent health care and lead a life with dignity. Consequently, politics loses its democratic character along with any sense of responsibility and becomes part of a machinery of violence that mimics the fascistic policies of past authoritarian political parties that eagerly attempted to purify their societies by getting rid of those human beings considered weak and inferior and whom they ultimately viewed as human waste. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that a lunatic fringe of a major political party is shamelessly mimicking and nourishing the barbaric roots of one of the most evil periods in human history. By arguing that individuals with pre-existing health conditions are like burned-down houses who do not deserve health insurance, Huckabee puts into place those forces and ideologies that allow the country to move closer to the end point of such logic by suggesting that such disposable populations do not deserve to live at all.

In case you haven’t noticed, Europe is on the verge of implosion and the U.K. and the U.S. won’t be far behind. Sensible places like Canada, Australia and Scandinavia will likely be spared the burning banks and government buildings but rest assured things will get rough there too. Why? Because we’re all BROKE. Our parents screwed us and now we’re screwing our children and most likely their children as well. Nicely done! Let’s pat ourselves on the back!

I’m just curious to know what kind of conversations politicians and bankers are having with their respective militaries as hoarding the wealth of the world is not enough. At the end of the day they will have to control the weapons and the soldiers too if they do not want to be drawn and quartered on the public square. How “failsafe” is the U.S. millitary against the kind of threat that is mounting? God knows the U.S. military is awfully big…you’d think big enough that it could easily fracture along the political ideologies of it’s top chain of command leading to some very complicated messes WITHIN the U.S., never mind, without. (more…)

Peak Oil and Peak “Cheap Oil” by Erik Townsend that I found at www.chrismartenson.com. A very credible argument that explains why oil might very well make it back to $200 a barrel but is not likely to go much higher as that is the price point where governments of oil producing nations are likely to begin nationalizing oil producing assets and controlling energy markets as a matter of national security… It seems bad enough for oil… Haven’t seen anything yet about the coming water shortage crisis… And lets not forget that California is due to sink into the Pacific any day now… Do you believe now in the deadliness of the future?

The Excerpt:

Market force vs. Military force

One of the strongest arguments made by Peak Oil speculators is that prices will rise in large part because emerging economies (particularly China) are industrializing, radically growing their vehicle fleets, and generally likely to create enormous new demand for decades to come. On its face, this is a sound and well-reasoned argument and the fundamentals in those countries strongly support this conclusion. But this argument assumes that oil prices will continue to be set by a free-market supply and demand system. I think that a dangerous assumption.

I’m convinced that as Peak Cheap Oil arrives, a series of peak oil price shocks will cripple developed economies, including the United States. (more…)

Anyone who’s seen Casualties of War (1989 w/ Sean Penn and Micheal J. Fox..look it up) knows that war sucks.

It is to no one’s great surprise that the Wikileaks video of Young Americans giggling as they waste people has created an uproar of aghast commentary online… This piece in the NYT is a good counterpoint.

I too was taken aback when I read the transcript of the offensive words. I haven’t seen the video but I don’t have to. I own Modern Warfare 2 and so I know what it feels like to have the power to terminate the enemy with impunity from afar as if playing a video game. And believe me, the current state of gaming technology really delivers a visceral experience that gives one pause. The thrill of being a virtual soldier is always tempered by a lingering discomfort: I can’t help but think of all the souls that have been dispatched in such a manner. The fact that the visuals of the game so accurately reflect the Youtube videos that began to surface a number of years back depicting the realities of modern warfare really adds to the experience. And make no mistake, the discomfort helps define the thrill. It is a guilty pleasure. It’s complicated. And so is this whole business of warfare. (more…)

Lieutenant colonel Brian Christmas should lighten up. He says that blasting Taliban with Metal is “inappropriate”.

On the contrary Sir. Heavy Metal IS a weapon and should be used as such. It aggregates the seething frustrations of disaffected youth (see Kill ’em All by Metallica, 1983) and concentrates it in a beam of sound so fierce and disturbing to medieval ears that “insurgents lay down their arms”.

I suppose liquifying Taliban into pink mist with 30mm cannons from the comfort of a gunship would be more appropriate?

The U.S. Military is spending billions developping invisibility suits, long range stun guns, ground based lasers, everything and anything to neutralize the enemy from a distance and yet they turn their backs on the most pottent weapon of all: Teen Angst!